Agricultural harvesters, often called combines, are large machines with an operator station perhaps three meters in the air. Operators drive these vehicles over the road towing the agricultural harvesting head until they reach an agricultural field to be harvested. Once in the field, the agricultural harvesting head is disengaged from the agricultural harvester, the agricultural harvester is brought around to face the agricultural harvesting head, and the agricultural harvesting head is engaged to the front of the agricultural harvester. This process may happen several times in a day. During harvesting season, it is important for the operator to be able to travel from field to field harvesting crops as quickly as possible.
One difficulty that often appears is the need for the operator to position the agricultural harvesting head on the ground, then climb into the operator station of the agricultural harvester, then drive the agricultural harvester into initial engagement with the agricultural harvesting head, then climb back down from the operator station, then make various mechanical, electrical, and hydraulic connections between the agricultural harvester in the agricultural harvesting head, then climb back up to the operator station.
This climbing up and down delays crop harvesting, and further, may be difficult for an operator of advanced years.
In a related application, U.S. patent application Ser. No. 13/780,669, which is incorporated herein by reference for all that it teaches, an inventor of the present application described a driveshaft that was configured to be automatically extended from one side of the agricultural harvester toward a mating driveshaft on the same side of the agricultural harvesting head without requiring the operator to manually grasp and extend the driveshaft.
In another related application, U.S. patent application Ser. No. 13/780,547, which is also incorporated herein by reference for all that it teaches, and inventor of the present application described a driveshaft coupler that would couple the extended driveshaft to a driveshaft on the agricultural harvesting head without requiring the operator to manually coupled the two drive shafts together.
One problem with the arrangement above is that the driveshaft extends from only one side of the agricultural harvester. Many agricultural harvesters engage two drive shafts on an agricultural harvesting head, with one driveshaft extending from one side of the agricultural harvester in a first direction and the other drive shaft extending from the other side of the agricultural harvester in the opposite direction.
It is an object of this invention to provide a driveshaft for an agricultural harvester that extends in opposite directions from both the left and the right side of the agricultural harvester.